Servants of the Children of Light

[HollyDolly]

 I was surfing on the web, and looking for some of the communities in the book A Guide to Catholic Sisterhoods in the United States,by Rev.Thomas P.McCarthy. If you go to Internet Archives,www.archives.org, you can actually read a copy of the book.

Anyhow, I came across the Servants of the Children of Light.They were erected by the bishop of the Diocese of Bismark,ND. You can read his decree on the diocese website.It's a public association of the faithful, they are to live in community, take the three vows of poverty ,chastity, obedience, plus a forth vow to minister  to children.   Seems like new communities are formed everyday.

Also the foundress is Sister Chiara Therese Jacobson. She's a teacher and has several degrees and had studied in Italy.

[valleri]

this looks interesting! ty for sharing!

[HollyDolly]

You're welcome.

[PaxCordisJesu]

What exactly is a private association of the faithful? Is it the highest level, so to speak, of religious communities?

[AveMariaPurissima]

1 hour ago, PaxCordisJesu said:

What exactly is a private association of the faithful? Is it the highest level, so to speak, of religious communities?

I believe it's one of the early stages of forming a new religious community...but I'm sure someone else on here can explain it in more detail.

[HollyDolly]

I think you are right. Also I discovered the St.Mary Sisters. They were founded by the Bishop of Bismark.They were the black veil and white habit of the Dominicans.They do teaching.Another new group there. Will go to the dicoese website. 

[Nunsuch]

I don't understand. Bismarck is a pretty small diocese--why does it need 2 new communities, when there is nothing I can see on these websites (especially for the St. Mary group) that sets it aside from communities that already exist? For the St. Mary community, for instance, the very boilerplate stuff on formation could be taken from any manual about religious life, particularly those that are relatively traditional. There are already Benedictines in North Dakota, too. I don't get it.

[Sponsa-Christi]

On 1/18/2021 at 4:22 PM, AveMariaPurissima said:

I believe it's one of the early stages of forming a new religious community...but I'm sure someone else on here can explain it in more detail.

Challenge accepted!

An association of the faithful is a group of Catholics who are formally organized for a particular purpose, and who are recognized by the Church as a "juridical person"--i.e., as an entity that is acknowledged and bound by canon law. A public association of the faithful is a group that carries out their activities in the name of the Church; a private association of the faithful is not acting in the name of the Church.

Associations of the faithful don't necessarily have to be aspiring future religious communities. In fact, the canon law on associations really doesn't seem to envision public and private associations of the faithful as being proto-religious institutes. It's just that right now we really don't have a better category to have groups recognized in canon law that want to be religious communities but aren't ready to be full-fledged communities yet. 

So, becoming an association of the faithful is not technically a step in the process of a community becoming recognized as a religious institute, it's just that de facto most bishops tend to use the category of "associations" this way. 

4 hours ago, Nunsuch said:

I don't understand. Bismarck is a pretty small diocese--why does it need 2 new communities, when there is nothing I can see on these websites (especially for the St. Mary group) that sets it aside from communities that already exist? For the St. Mary community, for instance, the very boilerplate stuff on formation could be taken from any manual about religious life, particularly those that are relatively traditional. There are already Benedictines in North Dakota, too. I don't get it.

I'm all for being cautious with approving new communities. But at the end of the day, the Holy Spirit calls whenever, wherever, and whomever He calls. So a calculation of: "X diocese already has Y number of religious, they don't need any more" isn't always the best way to approach these questions, in my opinion. 

I can also see where the websites don't make these new communities seem strikingly original, but giving everyone the benefit of the doubt...there's only so much you can convey in a website (especially if you're not gifted in tech or media). It could well be that the foundresses do have a unique charism--or at least a "classic" charism with a new charismatic nuance--that the bishop thought was worth fostering. 

[Nunsuch]

I don't disagree with you, @Sponsa-Christi, except that I'd suggest that a new community has a responsibility to indicate why it is needed--less in an instrumental (ministerial) way than in an charismic one. I'm not a canon lawyer, but I am a historian of religious life, and this all seems a little odd to me.

[HollyDolly]

Nunsuch, I get your point. Now a Archdiocese like San Antonio which has over a million people, you maybe could see it. But as you say, Bismark isn't that  big,but maybe the Holy Spirit is guiding what's going on.The website  for San Antonio is frustrating in regards to vocations. It doesn't list by any means all the orders of women and men here.I know  some of the communities: Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, Sisters of Divine Providence, Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate, Cordi-Marian Sisters, Felician Sisters, Hermanas Josefinas, Hermanas Cathequistas Guadalupana, Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament Sisters, etc. But not all are listed. Some diocese  have good vocation pages, others not so good. In any case i always thought there had to be a need for a new community anyways.

[Lilllabettt]

1 hour ago, Nunsuch said:

I don't disagree with you, @Sponsa-Christi, except that I'd suggest that a new community has a responsibility to indicate why it is needed--less in an instrumental (ministerial) way than in an charismic one. I'm not a canon lawyer, but I am a historian of religious life, and this all seems a little odd to me.

Idk... the decline of older establishment religious communities and the rapid multiplication of new foundations, of which presumably only a fraction will survive infancy, seems like a "normal" story to me. Like the past 50 years at least. 

[Nunsuch]

40 minutes ago, Lilllabettt said:

Idk... the decline of older establishment religious communities and the rapid multiplication of new foundations, of which presumably only a fraction will survive infancy, seems like a "normal" story to me. Like the past 50 years at least. 

Of course, as a historian, I think of the past 50 years as "my memory," and not "history." <grin>

[Antigonos]

13 hours ago, Nunsuch said:

Of course, as a historian, I think of the past 50 years as "my memory," and not "history." <grin>

I think of the last 65 years as  "memory".  I can well remember the Eisenhower era.  I was amused and surprised when my then-teenage daughter [now 38] asked me if I'd ever heard of a "singer called Bob Dylan" as if he had lived 200 years ago...

[Sister Andrew]

On 1/20/2021 at 10:44 AM, HollyDolly said:

Nunsuch, I get your point. Now a Archdiocese like San Antonio which has over a million people, you maybe could see it. But as you say, Bismark isn't that  big,but maybe the Holy Spirit is guiding what's going on.The website  for San Antonio is frustrating in regards to vocations. It doesn't list by any means all the orders of women and men here.I know  some of the communities: Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, Sisters of Divine Providence, Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate, Cordi-Marian Sisters, Felician Sisters, Hermanas Josefinas, Hermanas Cathequistas Guadalupana, Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament Sisters, etc. But not all are listed. Some diocese  have good vocation pages, others not so good. In any case i always thought there had to be a need for a new community anyways.

Hi @HollyDollyI just wanted to give you some info regarding the Archdiocese of San Antonio.  (I was assigned there from 2017 until 2019) It's true that the website isn't that helpful at times! 

 here you can find a listing of many different communities and their vocation director. I also know there was a printed pamphlet available that listed all the communities in San Antonio (I think there are over 50 men's and women's communities in the Archdiocese!) But I think it was printed by the office of Consecrated Life, you could contact  them to see if they still have that available if you're interested. You can find the contact info for the office of Consecrate Life here Sr. Elizabeth (the director of the office of Consecrated Life) is wonderful and she'd be happy to get you any information. 

 

If I can be of help in any way let me know!

God bless,

Sr. Andrew

[Agatha]

Private association of the faithful would be the starting point. The highest I think would be pontifical. Under the Pope. There are many steps that the Community needs to go through in order to advance. They have to see the Bishop, he would need to approve their constitutions. If he doesn't approve then the Mother superior would need to do them over until the Bishop approves and are ready for the next step. The Bishop will decide when they are ready to move on to the next step.

Pax

Agatha